Providing the richest curriculum that offers activities and experiences to meet the needs of all learners will reap benefits not just at the end of EYFS but beyond. When teaching a generation that has been born during a pandemic, with greater experiential deficit than generations before them, makes this critically important. Having secure subject knowledge allows confidence to provide well attuned, rich, memorable first-hand experiences that will invite learning across the curriculum.
So, what is a broad and balanced curriculum?
Put simply, a broad and balanced curriculum provides children in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) with the life skills and knowledge they need, which is best provided through a holistic, play-centred approach, that will equip them to grow up into well-rounded individuals.
With increasing pressures around assessment and early reading in the EYFS, some schools and settings may inadvertently narrow their curriculum. Here’s where we’re missing a trick…. why not expand our holistic curriculums and use areas of learning such as Understanding the World to underpin your curriculum to enable broad and balanced opportunities that meet the needs of all children in your cohort as well as fuelling learning across all the other areas of the curriculum, recognising the intersectionality of learning. In doing this, children’s learning will not only be supported across all areas of learning and development in the Statutory Framework, but we’ll also be expanding children’s cultural capital.
‘The EYFS’s educational programmes provide the framework for the curriculum. It is up to schools to decide how to expand, extend and broaden these. It is for schools to decide what guidance they choose to use when developing and shaping their curriculums.’ (Ofsted | Guidance: The EYFS in schools, July 2022).
Since the revised EYFS statutory framework, the educational programme of Understanding the World has changed the Early Learning Goals (ELG’s) to:
- Past and Present
- People, Culture and Communities and,
- The Natural World
Understanding the world is all about supporting children to make sense of the physical world around them as well as the community they live in. It’s about increasing children’s awareness of their locality as well as developing an appreciation for important members of society such as police officers and nurses. Understanding the world now has clear alignment to early reading clearly stating in the educational programme that understanding the world is about, ‘listening to a broad selection of stories, non-fiction, rhymes, and poems will foster…understanding of our culturally, socially, technologically and ecologically diverse world. As well as building important knowledge, this extends…familiarity with words that support understanding across domains. Enriching and widening children’s vocabulary will support later reading comprehension.’
So how do we use Understanding the World to inspire a broad and balanced curriculum?
There are some simple yet effective ways to link Understanding the World throughout your curriculum to help maximise opportunities for children to engage them in purposeful and real-life practical experiences that will contribute to a holistic, interconnected curriculum:
- Use high quality books (fiction and non-fiction) as well as poems and nursery rhymes from varying cultures as hooks to excite children about specific topics. This will not only engage children into new learning but will also introduce children to new vocabulary to develop their communication and language skills.
- Audit your learning environment, both indoors and outdoors, to ensure you have effective resources to enable children to explore and investigate how and why things work, where children can test out their ideas of what will happen if they do a particular thing, enjoy problem solving and learn about action and consequences.
- Invite important people from your local community to share their experiences, for example, why not invite parents in to share information about their jobs or a visitor from a local place of worship. This teaches children about the roles adults play in the community.
- Embrace every opportunity to make use of your local environment, for example, local parks, forests or lakes and even historic buildings or places of worship. This can teach children how to keep safe beyond the setting and develop skills that will help develop skills and knowledge that will underpin their future geographical and historical learning beyond EYFS.
- Embrace nature in your setting and be sure to provide natural resources (and even living things) in your provision to provide practical and real hands-on experiences to evoke children’s senses. Developing knowledge, skills and understanding in meaningful ways that supports language development and vocabulary building.
- Add enhancements to your continuous provision which promote curiosity, awe and wonder, for example, an interesting historical artefact in a curiosity cube which might trigger children to talk about what they have observed using newly introduced vocabulary and provide opportunities for children to record what they see using nearby writing tools on offer.
High quality practical, real life experiences that harness children’s interests linked to the world around them can provide enriching learning opportunities that will support development across all aspects of your curriculum as well as improving children’s final outcomes in the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP).
With keynotes from Ruth Swailes and Liz Pemberton, and a choice of nine workshops delivered by leading early years experts, the HFL Education 2023 National Early Years conference will help you achieve the ‘broad and balanced curriculum’ that will maximising every child's potential.
Ruth Swailes
Liz Pemberton
Find out more:
Early Years: foundations for future success: Book your place here
HFL Education
HFL Education is a leading national provider of school improvement and business support services, training, and resources, which enable schools, educational settings and multi-academy trusts to deliver a great education.
We support those we work with to achieve successful long-term outcomes for their children.
We believe that every young person, through access to a great education, should be able to realise their potential, regardless of where they live, their background or circumstances.
Learn more about us at hfleducation.org
